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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28334406">Trust Me Not, Touch Me Not</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrainlessGenius/pseuds/BrainlessGenius'>BrainlessGenius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders is a Good Friend, Deceit | Janus Sanders Angst, Deceit | Janus Sanders Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Prompt Fill, Song fic, Song: Eight (Sleeping At Last), Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Deceit | Janus Sanders, Trust Issues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:41:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,480</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28334406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrainlessGenius/pseuds/BrainlessGenius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Touch was a bright comet piercing through the earth’s atmosphere -- radiant and magnificent, tempting the clouds to taste the heat of its presence, but fatal in how it burned everything it grazed.  Janus longed to be touched, but he feared its consequences far more.</p><p>A fill for the prompt: "Touch-starved Janus angst with hurt/comfort"<br/>Song: Eight by Sleeping At Last</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anxiety &amp; Creativity &amp; Dark Creativity &amp; Deceit &amp; Logic &amp; Morality (Sanders Sides), Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders &amp; Deceit | Janus Sanders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>141</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trust Me Not, Touch Me Not</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/remy_the_lemon_berry/gifts">remy_the_lemon_berry</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Merry Christmas to one of the strongest people I know. This fic's for you, hun &lt;3.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> I remember the minute </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It was like a switch was flipped </em>
</p><p>Self-preservation came at a price.</p><p>The call to preserve one’s self came to Janus like how crying was a baby’s first instinct. He did not know why nor how he was to protect himself, nor even what he was supposed to be protecting himself <em> from, </em>but something innate in him begged him to do so. </p><p>
  <em> I was just a kid who grew up strong enough </em>
</p><p>
  <em> To pick this armor up </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And suddenly it fit </em>
</p><p>From the very start, he had the unquenchable thirst to shield himself, hide, lock his true self away from the openness of the world. Not that there was much of him to hide in the first place. He learned to set up walls, divisions, and boundaries. He was never the same person in a day, never the same face to different people. He was a glass mirror, cracked and shattered, reflections same but different, familiar but warped. You never knew which was the true image in a broken mirror. </p><p>He hadn’t even given his name.</p><p>
  <em> God, that was so long ago, long ago, long ago </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I was little, I was weak and perfectly naive </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I grew up too quick </em>
</p><p>He thanked the natural capacity of humans for lying, as deceit played into his need to protect himself like how a key fit into a lock. Likewise, his self-centered reflexes only enhanced the sharpness of his dishonest tongue.</p><p>Even back then, Janus had already realized that being assigned the role of deceit would not be easy. The others thought deception only meant a constant stream of lies. They assumed that it was as easy as saying the inverse of the truth every second of the day; but it was not. Deception could never be just lies, else it would just be a giveaway cipher, a 1x1 rubik's cube, a 2-piece puzzle. “The truth with extra steps,” as Virgil often said.</p><p>True deception was not taking Janus’ words and turning it on its head. True deception was taking Janus’ words and making them guess. Was it to be taken as is? Must it be flipped? Rotated? Peeled back? How many layers? Were all the pieces complete? Were there excess ones?</p><p>Deception meant second guessing truth and lie alike. It meant second guessing his very being. It meant so many branching cracks that no one knew where one piece began and the other ended. Not even the mirror itself.</p><p>He had succeeded, but it wasn’t enough.</p><p>
  <em> Now you won't see all that I have to lose </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And all I've lost in the fight to protect it </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I won't let you in, I swore never again </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I can't afford, no, I refuse to be rejected </em>
</p><p>His towers were sturdy, his defenses foolproof, his walls pristine, his boundaries solid, his masks untearable. But Janus failed to take into account that at least half of him was still human, and that human skin was not as hard as a snake’s.</p><p>A snake’s scales were tough, rough, colorful, beautiful in the diversity of its colors and patterns, cold, unfeeling, and deadly in the hardness of its structure. It looked nearing perfection. A human’s was soft, fragile, warm in the hint of redness beneath, sensitive, weak in the networking of nerves below the surface. Flawed.</p><p>He realized, one day when a young Patton had called everyone in for a group hug, that touch was the most horrendous blessing that could ever be bestowed upon Janus. The brief, enclosing warmth seeped past his defenseless human form, bolts of lightning dancing like fire against his skin, hot springs coursing through rivers in his veins. A single touch slipped through the glass’s cracks, radiated through carefully put up walls, burned through layers and layers of masks, and tore through miles of defenses. </p><p>Touch was a bright comet piercing through the earth’s atmosphere -- radiant and magnificent, tempting the clouds to taste the heat of its presence, but fatal in how it burned everything it grazed. </p><p>
  <em> I want to break these bones 'til they're better </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I want to break them right and feel alive </em>
</p><p>
  <em> You were wrong, you were wrong, you were wrong </em>
</p><p>
  <em> My healing needed more than time </em>
</p><p>He shied away from contact, then, but not because he despised it. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He longed for the sensation of touch so much that it terrified him. He feared the glorious rush of a single arm brush for even the slightest touch sent walls crashing down and his most vulnerable self threatening to break through chains. </p><p>He flinched away from the others. A half lie. He drew back because it was easy enough to feign disgust, but also because he was truly, pathetically overwhelmed to the point of having to leave before a brick got dislodged from its place.</p><p>They took the hint and left him alone. They did not want to grant Janus discomfort, did not want to hurt him. Janus was both relieved and crushed.</p><p>
  <em> When I see fragile things, helpless things, broken things </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I see the familiar </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I was little, I was weak, I was perfect, too </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Now I'm a broken mirror </em>
</p><p>He learned to ignore the ache, the screaming of his bones, the yearning in his muscles, the emptiness of his fingertips. A small price to pay to keep his structures standing tall.</p><p>Their introduction to Thomas was a new dent in the mirror. Now it was not only himself. There was a new player in the field, a new goal; one that ultimately surpassed Janus’ own reservations. Self-preservation had been given a new name as it no longer solely referred to Janus, but to Thomas as well.</p><p>Thomas, who went against everything Janus believed in. Thomas, who always readily took the others’ advice, but always questioned Deceit’s. Thomas, who was kind, outgoing, forgiving, and <em> giving. </em>Thomas who always seemed to share too much of himself, spreading himself wide open, wearing himself down too thin. Thomas who always gave more than he should, who always left too little to himself.</p><p>Thomas, who has opened himself out to the world, and was repaid with heartbreak, criticism, anxiety, hate, and pain. The sight was all too familiar, and the guttural voice yelling at Janus to protect and preserve came back stronger than any natural force on earth. He extended his deception to Thomas, no matter how scornful Virgil looked at him or how disapproving Patton glared.</p><p>Janus knew deceit came hand-in-hand with self-preservation. It was the only thing he knew could keep their host safe from the injustices of the world.</p><p>It was easier for the others to avoid him since; easier for him to keep up the walls, harder to ignore his starved skin.</p><p>
  <em> But I can't let you see all that I have to lose </em>
</p><p>
  <em> All I've lost in the fight to protect it </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I can't let you in, I swore never again </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I can't afford to let myself be blindsided </em>
</p><p>He kept it up. The lies slipped smoother, more fluid past Thomas’ mouth while the walls around Janus only grew thicker. Thorn-adorned vines climbed up and sunk into the crevices, preventing passage for any intruder who dared to enter. He was not even sure what they would see if one managed to push through. Janus was just as lost in the middle of his broken mirror maze, doomed to search for the right reflection despite the impossibility.</p><p>He wore more layers. Long sleeves to simulate the feeling of skin against skin, gloves to fruitlessly feed the hunger of his fingers, and a capelet to imitate the feeling of arms, a body, wrapped around his. He felt envious, as he watched the others partake in their unspoken language of touch. He painstakingly watched as they comfortably exchanged shoulder pats, carded fingers through hair, attacked the other from behind, entangled limbs on movie nights, gave out hugs in sorrows and high fives in victories. Janus became but a mere onlooker; someone to avoid in the narrow walkway to the kitchen, the extra seat during movies that was situated away from them, the poor audience who saw just how many times the others were <em> this </em>close to hugging him, to laying a hand on his cheek. </p><p>Worse were the feather-light accidental touches when one passed by him too quick, or the barely noticeable way their fingers came into contact when asked to pass the salt. Worst was the way they retracted lightning quick after, muttering unending apologies and standing far, as if the touch had burned them. </p><p>And it did. Not them, but Janus. It burned him that the slightest sensation got him dizzy, breathless, as if a hot iron rod had been pressed flush against his skin for only a millisecond. He’d lay awake, replaying the event, silently pleading for more than just an accidental brush, hating the way the walls crumbled just as quick as the touch came and went.</p><p>But he had asked for this, and he thought himself deserving of this misery.</p><p>
  <em> I'm standing guard, I'm falling apart </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And all I want is to trust you </em>
</p><p>No one had listened to him. There he was, trying to convince everyone in the faux-courtroom of Thomas’ true wants, of putting Thomas first, of the dangers of giving too much, but no one believed him. How could they, when they often forgot how he was Self-preservation, but always remembered how he was Deceit? Like Janus had witnessed time and time again, they had gotten hurt.</p><p>Alone, he placed the blame on Patton and the toxicity of his altruistic ways. He pointed fingers at Roman who allowed himself to be blinded by the idea of penance and morality. They chose martyrdom and for the expense of what? Yet Janus could not ignore the niggling fear that he was also at fault, to a degree. He should have known they wouldn’t consider his inputs. He should have seen the hesitance coming. </p><p>They did not trust him enough. Why should they, when Janus had never even allowed himself the liberty of trusting them? How could they, when Janus had locked himself in the center of a maze, shards of glass threatening to pierce their feet the very second they chose to step inside?</p><p>But the host had always been a higher priority, and right now he was hurt, and Janus shared a piece of the fault.</p><p>
  <em> Show me how to lay my sword down </em>
</p><p>
  <em> For long enough to let you through </em>
</p><p>He did not know whether he was about to regret what he was about to do then, but the host was worth any risk. Janus trembled as he shakily stepped out of the comforts of his maze, shivered as he willfully allowed some of the walls to crash around him, gulped as he tore down one of his many faces.</p><p>He allowed a fraction of himself to slip through, if only to gain even just a fraction of their trust in return.</p><p>“My name… is <em> Janus. </em>”</p><p>In Roman’s laughter, he found the same consequence he’d proven time and time before. He’d take the pain of disbelief and the humiliation of nakedness, if it meant there was even a chance of Thomas, just Thomas, listening. He was used to the sting, anyway. His name was merely a single brick out of his constructed divides, but even a single loose brick was enough to topple a tower.</p><p>
  <em> Here I am, pry me open </em>
</p><p>
  <em> What do you want to know? </em>
</p><p>It brings him here, now, hyperventilating in his room after. A panic attack, as Logan and Virgil described once. He desperately fights to keep the walls up, a futile attempt to throw mortar at rapidly falling debris, but every breath he fails to take is another brick off the wall, another fallen shard. </p><p>Giving away something so trivial as a name should not be this heavy of a weight, nor that great of a loss. Yet here he is, arms tight around his knees and blanket around his form as he heaves for air, desperately latching onto any weight, any contact he can find. It is a tragedy, he thinks. He wants to trust but does not know how. He yearns for touch but fears its consequences.</p><p>
  <em> I'm just a kid who grew up scared enough </em>
</p><p>
  <em> To hold the door shut </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And bury my innocence </em>
</p><p>Someone finds him. He does not know who, nor why, nor how; only that this person touches his shoulder once, sending a shocking wave of warmth and comfort so rapidly that he flinches without giving a second thought. The hand withdraws just as quick, the unknown presence muttering apologies from a safe distance. </p><p>His lungs ache for air and his shoulder burns from where it had been grazed, starving and begging for more after the slightest taste. It’s his first panic attack. He did not know how much it would hurt to breathe, how messy the entire ordeal would look, how loud and ungodly the sounds out of his mouth would be, how muffled everything else would seem.</p><p>He feels weak. He feels helpless.</p><p>There is counting, yet he barely follows. All Janus hears is the yelling, the <em> pleading </em> of his own skin to lean forward, to follow the voice, to press his body against the other’s, to physically allow himself to feel. It is drowned out by the objections in his head, telling him to stand firm, keep the walls up. It reminds him that the divides have been down for too long. His primal instincts tell him to stop, turn away. It blares loud, red alarms warning him that too much of his vulnerability, his weakness, too much of <em> him </em>was showing and escaping past his boundaries.</p><p>He tries. He hears the innate mechanisms of his facet calling him to do what he knew best and pushes to follow its orders. He struggles to catch his breath on his own and tries to straighten his back, an unsuccessful display of stability. He attempts to tamp down the choking sobs and steady the shivering arms around his knees, a final yet futile pursuit to keep the face he had already lost.</p><p>Then he hears it. Through the smoke and debris of his worn-down defenses, he hears it.</p><p>
  <b> <em>“Can I touch you?”</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em> But here's a map, here's a shovel </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Here's my Achilles' heel </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm all in, palms out </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I'm at your mercy now and I'm ready to begin </em>
</p><p>The question throws Janus off-guard; a position he rarely found himself in. He blearily lifts his head, squints his eyes, blinks the tears away, and sees a dishevelled, fear-stricken prince with his hands open before him, hovering tentatively between them. The same prince he had laid out his name to mere hours ago, the same one who had scoffed at his pathetic shot at getting them to trust him. The same prince who still came to Janus’ room afterwards for a likely irrelevant, forgotten reason, who was now still waiting for his reply.</p><p>A simple invitation, yet such a challenge to accept.</p><p>The alarms sound louder, the vines threaten to curl itselves tighter, the earth beneath his cold feet shakes, the maze readies to disassemble, the walls rumble and crumble, and the masks fall apart one by one.</p><p>He stares at the hands, painfully aware of the coolness of his own skin, of the emptiness of his arms, the loneliness of his fingertips, the envy in his mind, and the longing in his chest.</p><p>
  <em> “Janus, can you hear me? Can I touch you?” </em>
</p><p>The question hangs in the air, and he is aware that this has been the same question that’s plagued him for years. Can he touch them? Can he let himself fall apart? Can he give that much of himself? Can he risk this? </p><p>Can he trust them?</p><p>In that moment, something in him breaks, and the sound of its destruction echoes louder than the pleads of self-preservation and the cries of deception.</p><p>He looks at Roman with all the uncertainty in the world pooling in his irises and decides to release his hold on the final mask, the final brick, the final vine, the final shard.</p><p>
  <b> <em>“Please.”</em> </b>
</p><p>
  <em> I am strong, I am strong, I am strong enough to let you in </em>
</p><p>Roman’s touch is soft, slow, and unsure. It starts with a shaky hand on his shoulder and the other wrapping around him to settle on his capelet-covered back. The foreign sensation burns Janus, form jolting along with a hicc as firecrackers dance on the areas Roman’s fingers reach. The other pulls him closer, and the weight on Janus’ back radiates through the clothing. He is moved to have his chin settle on the royal’s shoulder and he gasps at the feeling of the other’s clothes tickling his neck, of his knees brushing his sash, of his shoulders heavy with human warmth, and cries even further at Roman’s only request of him to <em> breathe. </em></p><p>
  <em> I'ma shake the ground with all my might </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I will pull my whole heart up to the surface </em>
</p><p>He breathes in and hugs his own body tighter. He breathes out and brings all the locked up longing, need, want, and deprivation out with it. </p><p>
  <em> For the innocent, for the vulnerable </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And I'll show up on the front lines with a purpose </em>
</p><p>His arms quickly untangle from his knees and tightly wrap around Roman like a man desperately clinging on for dear life, and Janus cries from the sheer brilliance of it all. He is enveloped by overwhelming sensations and all he can do is to take and take and <em> take </em>as much of this forbidden fruit as he can get. Roman’s hand spreads heat through his back as he rubs circling motions across it. The last of Janus’ deep-seethed control slips away as he frantically takes off his gloves from where his hands meet behind Roman, and he latches. </p><p>His trembling fingers grasp at the other’s sash, his clothes, his shoulders as he continues to gasp and sob in the royal’s embrace. He aches to have his naked fingers finally revel in the unique texture of another's skin. He allows himself to drown in his greed and to just live in the well-missed feeling of another’s presence flush against his own.</p><p>
  <em> And I'll give all I have, I'll give my blood, give my sweat </em>
</p><p>Roman tries to let go minutes later, but Janus pulls him tighter, risking all he has and laying himself down for Roman to pick apart -- flawed, hurt, desperate, warm, vulnerable. He finally sets free the human half of him, walls down and face bare for all the world to witness; terrified of the tenderness of himself without a shell, brave enough to let someone cut through his defenses.</p><p>They stay this way for hours, unspeaking, only feeling. They feel in silence until the tears dry and airways give way. They sit still on the rickety bed, leaning against the wall, arms around each other, legs in a messy tangle, one head on another’s chest, and fingers linked.</p><p>
  <em> An ocean of tears will spill for what is broken </em>
</p><p>It is Roman who breaks the silence with an apology, an admittance of fault, a recognition of mistake. Janus knows well enough that Roman is only half of the culprit, and he follows through with an apology of his own; gloves off along with a promise of truth and sincerity. </p><p>They forgive each other, and the conversation ends there.</p><p>There are no follow-up questions. There is no prying to find out why Janus is not letting go nor is there a requirement to spill the entirety of his torturous tale, and Janus is grateful. Flowers always take time to bloom, and Janus has just begun. He has time.</p><p>
  <em> I'm shattered porcelain, glued back together again </em>
</p><p>Trust does not equate to non-existent walls and limitless boundaries. Trust is a long, relentless journey of mystery and discovery, and it will take years before all six of them can find the right balance, the right mix, the right recipe. They’ll spend a good amount of time testing the waters, building and demolishing walls, planting and plucking out vines, before trust becomes an unspoken thing between them.</p><p>Deception and self-preservation can never be taken away from Janus. It’s his entire being, and its loud pleas to shut himself away had yet to lower its volume, had yet to lose its power. The need to lie and protect himself from the dangers of the outside will always remain, but the need can always be controlled.</p><p>For now, as Janus chokes back a sob and relishes in the childish little group hug he has yearned from all of them for all those years, enveloped in waves of comfort he has never allowed himself to have, he smiles, and thinks that this is a start.</p><p>
  <em> Invincible like I've never been </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>How are ya guys! Every little support and kudos is eternally appreciated. Follow me on Tumblr <a href="https://nerdy-emo-royal-dad.tumblr.com/">@nerdy-emo-royal-dad</a>! Stay safe and Happy Holidays, folks! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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